Methods and apparatus for the transfer of heat through a thin, infrared transparent film between a flowable product such as sludge, slurry, extract, juice, or other like product, and a heated or chilled liquid, been taught in our previous patents, namely U.S. Pat. No. 4,631,837, issued Dec. 30, 1986 for a Method and Apparatus for Drying Fruit Pulp and the Like, and U.S. Pat. No. 6,047,484, issued Apr. 11, 2000, for a Method and Apparatus for Evaporating Liquid from a Product, and the disclosures of each of these U.S. patents is incorporated herein in their entirety by this reference. However, the challenge of uniformly distributing a material on such a thin film has continued to require development of new apparatus and methods, especially to take advantage of such apparatus as applied to food preparation. And concurrently, the need for sanitary systems that can be easily cleaned to a high level of purity, i.e., freedom from biological contamination, has continued to be of utmost importance to food processors. Thus, the ability to provide apparatus and systems for sanitary, cleanable application of foods to dryers and evaporators has become increasingly important. This is especially true at locations which are making foods such as fruit leathers from a pulp or fruit juice mass, which, after drying, must remain viable for long storage periods. Also, in order to pass governmental inspections in most, if not all locales, easily cleaned sanitary equipment is mandatory. Thus, there has been an increasing demand for high performance drying and evaporation systems, including for designs such as those taught in the prior art patents that were just noted above, but that demand has been coupled with a requirement to provide therewith a cleanable, sanitary spray nozzle for application of materials to the thin film used in the drying apparatus. Consequently, this disclosure provides novel and improved spray nozzles, and apparatus for using such improved nozzles in drying equipment to provide relatively uniform, easily dried product layers to such thin film evaporation equipment.
The foregoing figures, being merely exemplary, contain various elements that may be present or omitted from actual implementations and process configurations of the spray apparatus taught herein, depending upon the circumstances. An attempt has been made to draw the figures in a way that illustrates at least those elements that are significant for an understanding of the various embodiments and aspects of the invention. However, various other elements of unique sanitary spray nozzles are also shown and briefly described to enable the reader to understand how various features, including optional or alternate features, may be utilized in order to provide a simple, cleanable, sanitary spray apparatus that can be manufactured in a desired size and configuration for providing a long lasting and superbly performing spray system.